“In a couple of hours?”
“Absolutely!”
1959 October 05 Monday 12:22
Wedged between the two Gladiators in the back seat, Ace resisted the urge to touch the talisman concealed in his jacket. He was torn between relief that he hadn’t been searched and anger that the rival gang hadn’t even bothered.
Sunglasses puffed on a cigarette, flicking the ashes out the open window. None of the other Gladiators smoked. Nobody offered Ace one.
Instead of turning east, as Ace expected, the Oldsmobile crossed Lambert Avenue, motoring along slowly. Kings turf, Ace thought to himself. And they’re just driving through it, like it was theirs. He kept his hands on his thighs, hoping his expression showed how profoundly unimpressed he was.
The Gladiators’ Oldsmobile did a leisurely circuit of the area, even driving right past the block of attached row houses on South Eighteenth, where the Kings had their clubhouse.
Look at all the niggers, standing there on the corner like they owned it, Ace thought. If you had a machine gun, you could just mow them down, like cutting the grass.
The Oldsmobile finally turned east, then headed back across Lambert, and into Gladiator territory. As the driver parked in front of an apartment building on Harrison, all four doors opened in unison, and the Gladiators stepped out. Ace slid across the seat cushion and followed, feeling the presence of the others surrounding him as he walked.
1959 October 05 Monday 12:26
“Why are you always pulling stuff like that?” Dave Peterson asked his partner.
“Like what?”
“You know what I mean, Mack. Wisecracks and all.”
“What are we doing here?” the older man asked, suddenly.
“Here? You mean here, on surveillance? Or here, like… our purpose in life?”
“Dave,” the older man said, wearily, “I thought we came to a gentlemen’s agreement on that stuff. I know you’re a good Christian. Hell, anyone who gets to listen to you for ten minutes knows that. And you, you know I’m a sinner, going straight to hell.”
“I never said-”
“Yeah, I know. Never mind. Look, what we’re doing here, we’re doing our job.”
“You always say that.”
“What else do you want me to say, kid?”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”
“Why not? I’m old enough to be your father, aren’t I? Doesn’t that make you wonder?”
“I don’t under-”
“Come on. You know I’ve got more than thirty years on this job. I go back to the days when Capone was running things. So how come I don’t have an ‘SAC’ after my name? How come I’m partnered with a rookie?”
“I… don’t know. I guess, maybe, to teach me some of the-”
“You don’t know, but you’ve heard, haven’t you?”
“I’m not a gossip,” the younger man said, stiffly.
“I know you’re not,” Mack said. “You don’t smoke, you don’t drink, you don’t gamble, you don’t cheat on your wife, and all you want to do is serve your country.”
“Why do you have to-?”
“I’m not mocking you, kid. I mean it,” Mack said, his voice just short of affectionate. “Okay, look, I’m going to answer my own question. What are we doing here? Our job. And what is our job? We’re blackmailers, kid. You, me, and the entire Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“Mack!”
“That’s the way things get done,” the older man said, calmly. “That’s the way people stay in power. Because there’s one thing on earth that’s more valuable than gold or diamonds, Davy. Information. The most precious commodity of all. You get enough on a man, it’s like there’s a handle growing out of his back. And whoever’s hand is on the tiller, he gets to steer.”
“That’s not blackmail; that’s just… law enforcement.”
The older man leaned back in his seat and lit a Winston, ignoring the younger man’s frown. “Law enforcement means keeping tabs on people who are breaking the law, kid. But the Bureau watches everybody. If the boss had his way, he’d have a file on every man, woman, and child in America. Wouldn’t be surprised if he already did.”
“Well, the way things are today-”
“Don’t start with that ‘Communist’ nonsense, again, Dave. That’s just a cover story. We’re supposed to be cops, not spies. That’s the CIA’s job.”
“But the CIA can’t work in America. It was the FBI that caught the Rosenbergs. And it was the Bureau that-”
“The Bureau spies on people because that’s what it does, kid. And they’ll be doing it long after Communism’s dead and gone.”
“You’re… you’re wrong, Mack. We’re not spies, we’re crime-fighters. America’s most important-”
“Yeah, I know. Doesn’t it strike you as unfair that we have to play by the rules and the bad guys don’t?”
“Well… sure. But if they did play by the rules, there wouldn’t be any need for us at all.”
Mack tossed his still-burning cigarette out of the side window of the plain-Jane sedan. “Want me to tell you a story, Dave?”
“I… don’t know,” the younger man said, warily.
“Oh, it’s a good one,” Mack promised. “You want to hear the inside scoop on how we nailed Al Capone?”
“I already know that. The Chicago police weren’t ever going to stop him. Probably half of them were on his payroll. But the Bureau got him on income tax, and that finished him and his whole empire.”
“Not a word of that’s true, kid.”
“Al Capone didn’t go to prison for tax evasion?”
“Of course he did. That’s not what I’m talking about. You want to hear the story or not? We’ve got another four, five hours to sit here and wait, anyway.”
1959 October 05 Monday 12:29
“Take the chair, child.”
“Oh, no, Daddy. That’s your chair. I’ll be fine on this,” Rosa Mae said, carefully perching herself on an upended crate.
“Bother you if I smoke my pipe?” Moses asked, holding up a long-stemmed white clay model as if for her inspection.
“Daddy, you know I love the way that cherry tobacco smells.”
“Never hurts to have manners,” the old man said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Come on, gal. I know you didn’t give up your lunch break for no reason. What you want me to help you with?”
“Daddy Moses, what do you think of Rufus Hightower?”
“That boy? Why you be asking-? Oh, I see…”
Rosa Mae lowered her head for a moment, then turned her amber eyes on Moses. “That’s what I want to know, Daddy,” she said, very softly. “What do you see? Because, sometimes, I see him… different than the way other people do. At least, I think I do.”
“Rufus is a very intelligent young man,” Moses said, cautiously. “A lot smarter than he let most folks know. But that’s nothing so strange, gal. Our people been doing that since we was on the plantations.”
“Oh, I know that,” Rosa Mae said. “But that’s for dealing with white folks, not our own. Rufus, he… Daddy, sometimes, it seems like he is two different people. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“One minute, he all diddybop, right?” Moses replied. “Got his mind on nothing more than a bottle of wine, some sharp clothes, a nice car, and a piece of-excuse me, gal-and as many women as he can catch. Next minute, he all serious. Not preacher-serious, all righteous and stiff: serious like he got plans.”
“That’s it!”
“He been talking to you, child?”
“Well, sure. I mean-”
“Don’t go all country-girl on me, Rosa Mae,” the elderly man said, sternly. “You know what I mean when I say ‘talking to you.’ ”
“Yes, Daddy,” she said, meekly. “He’s been talking to me.”
“Both parts of him?”
“Yes! Oh, Daddy, I knew you’d understand. Sometimes when Rufus talks to me, he’s like all the others. You know what I mean.”